For Real
by Kaylee Tam
Summary: What if Desmond met Altair - for real? How would the bartender live in Altair's world?
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **I don't have a secure plot for this story yet. I am taking suggestions, kind of like my story Big Damn Switch but to less of an extreme. I just wanted to warn you now.

**Disclaimer:** Assassin's Creed and all its characters etc. etc. belong to Ubisoft and the game's creators etc. etc. not me etc. etc. Etc.

* * *

Stacy walked through the Abstergo top-priority storage, taking inventory. Someone had to do it.

She looked from shelf to shelf, marking things off on her clipboard. Her brown hair was tied in a loose ponytail, and hours of work had freed more than a few strands to dangle by her face. Her green eyes were dull from repetitive monotony.

Today was going to be different.

She was about to get to the most important section of the closely guarded warehouse when a man ran up to her. He had short, dark hair and he was about her age. He panted as his brown eyes locked onto hers.

"How did you get in here?" she asked. This was a high-security vault-like warehouse. It housed the most precious of Abstergo items, and here she was looking at some guy who seemed to have just came from off the street.

"1221017," he said simply, straitening up. She widened her eyes, wondering how he knew the master code.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Doesn't matter," he said, though that was untrue. It very much mattered who knew the master code and who accessed these items. "Can you tell me how to get out of here?" he asked her, looking around.

"Are you serious?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "You're trusted with the master code and you can't even leave?" A thought struck her, and it scared her a little. "You're not one of those psychic subjects, are you?" she asked warily.

"No, I'm not psychic," he said, as if he didn't even believe in that. But he didn't deny that he was a subject.

"Why are you trying to leave?" she asked, putting her pen-holding hand on her hip.

"Because..." He thought of an answer rather quickly. "I need to get home because my sister's having a baby."

It was a pretty good one - but she wasn't buying it. "Which subject are you?" she asked flatly. "I need to report you to Security."

"Oh, great selling point, I'm gonna confess now." He rolled his eyes. "What's over here?" He pointed at the most important section of objects. She positioned herself between them and him. She wasn't going to let him anywhere near them.

"Nothing you should know about," she said, pushing hair from her face and crossing her arms.

"Aw, c'mon," the guy said, whining a little. "Just a peek?"

"No," Stacy said sternly.

"Well, at least tell me your name," he said simply.

She hesitated. "Stacy," she told him. She knew two other Stacys who worked here, so he wouldn't be able to find her file. Not that he'd go looking for it. "What's your name?" she asked in return.

He shook his head. "See, now if I tell you that, you could find my name pronto in any computer here and send me back to the most boring hellhole on earth." He glanced behind her again. "C'mon, Stace, why won't you just let me look?"

"_Don't_ call me Stace," she said, trying to pierce his flesh with her eyes. It didn't work.

Ignoring her commanding body language, he pushed past Stacy and walked directly into the area in question.

"Don't touch anything!" were the first words out of her mouth as she ran after him. He looked around at what looked like cobweb covered dusty useless things, but were actually very delicate and powerful things covered with a special sheet.

He sneezed and the sheet fluttered.

"No, don't!" she yelled, grabbing his arm as he reached out for something. It was a pink, translucent sphere of thin glass, with circular and polygonal designs etched into its surface. As soon as he touched it, it fell from its perch and Stacy dove to catch it.

They both caught it at the same time, but the idiot had too strong of a grip and broke a large shard from the top. Stacy stared at it in horror. Time seemed to slow as she saw the glass cut the man's finger. His blood trickled into what remained of the round glass device.

She managed to look back at his face, which looked more like "oops" while Stacy's read "Holy shit!", before they were engulfed by a pink light.


	2. Chapter 1

Stacy found herself, when the pink mist subsided, in the middle of what looked like a desert. She stood for a moment, confused. When her mind cleared, she rounded on Mr. Idiot who stood there cluelessly.

"Do you have any idea how powerful those artifacts were?" she asked, her voice high. The guy cringed a little. "Do you have any idea what could have _happened_ if you touched the wrong one?!" she was yelling, almost at the top of her lungs. "Did you not see the warning signs? Can you READ, Subject?" She knocked on his head. It looked like it hurt.

"My name is Desmond. Desmond Miles," he said quietly.

"Subject _seventeen_?" she asked, suddenly breathless.

"You know me by name?" he asked, forgetting her outburst for a second.

"Well, subject seventeen is pretty much the most important part of -" she started, but cut herself off. She wasn't supposed to tell anyone, not even the subjects, what Abstergo did.

She didn't have any time to mess anything else up, though, because they heard a horse galloping in the distance, followed by shouting. They got louder, and Stacy began making out just what the shouting was.

"_Assassin! He's an Assassin! Don't let him get away!"_

"Oh no," Desmond said, turning towards Stacy. "Stace, I've got a bad feeling about this."

"I told you not to call me that," she said in response, looking toward the galloping and wishing she had something to hide behind. She looked behind her and saw what looked like a very small kind of village, complete with a well, three buildings, and a random pile of hay. She backed up enough to get away from the galloping, heading for the back of a building, and Desmond followed.

A white horse galloped past, bringing wind into their faces. The white robed person riding the horse jumped off mid-gallop to land safely in the aforementioned random pile of hay, leaving his horse to slow down and turn back for him.

"Shit," Desmond said. "I was right."

The guards ran up to the village and looked around for him, forgetting to check the pile of hay. Giving up, they started walking back to wherever it was they had come from.

Before she could react, Desmond grabbed Stacy's arm and brought her over to the pile of hay, which still concealed the white-robed man. _What is he doing?_ she thought as he called out to the haystack.

"Altair," he said, "The coast is clear."

The hay did nothing. Desmond sighed. He bent down, reaching into the straw for reasons unknown to Stacy, and in an explosion of hay the white-robed man was on him, a blade pressed against his throat and bits of straw floating after him. He pushed Desmond to the ground and hovered above him.

"How do you know of my name?" the man - Altair? - growled, apparently not noticing Stacy.

"It's - a long - story," Desmond tried to say. It looked difficult to talk with a knife against his throat.

"We have time," Altair said, somehow achieving a tone deeper than before, and seemed to push the knife harder.

"_I _- don't!" Desmond choked out, his words almost scrambled while he tried not to let the knife puncture his skin. Altair seemed to notice this, picking his blade up and sheathing it. They stood up, Desmond holding his neck with his hand and breathing deeply.

"You will explain," Altair said. She couldn't see his face; it was obscured by his white hood. He had a lot of weapons on him and they clanked together in a muffled way.

"It's hard to explain, and you won't believe me anyway," he said, then he held up what remained of the artifact. "Do you know what this is?"

Stacy could tell Altair didn't know what it was, but he didn't answer. "You _will_ explain," he said, with a little more emphasis. A hidden blade unsheathed itself from his wrist.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Desmond said, holding his hands up. "You can't hurt me, remember? Rule one, stay your blade from the flesh of a-"

"How do you know of my creed? If you are an enemy of the Assassins, then you are no longer innocent!" He rose his hand to neck level. Stacy could see that the knife was fastened somehow to the underside of his wrist, beneath his clothes. He was missing one finger.

"Okay, okay, I see your point," Desmond said, backing away. He didn't lower his hands. "But, uh... I'm... I'm not an enemy! I knew where you were hiding, didn't I? I didn't tell the guards you were there."

"You could have wanted my hide for yourself," Altair said, walking closer.

"But... but, I didn't! Do I look like I could fight you? I spend all day mixing drinks, for Christ's sake! I don't work out!"

The man hesitated. Stacy agreed, it didn't look like Desmond would even get the chance to throw a punch. Altair sheathed his hidden blade, lowering his arm and somehow making the submissive motion threatening. Desmond slowly lowered his arms.

"Okay, look," Desmond said after a little while, trying to keep his hands where Altair could see them, "I'm unarmed. Stace is unarmed. The only thing we have that isn't clothing is this thingy." He held up the broken artifact again, and Stacy winced as she saw a whole third of it missing. If they ever got out of this alive, she would be fired, or possibly killed.

She took the opportunity to snatch it out of Desmond's hand, glaring at him and pocketing it. She would make sure that what's left of it would remain intact.

"Identify yourself," Altair said in a menacing way. His body language while standing straight was enough to send you to the opposite side of the room.

"I'm Desmond," Desmond said, "And this is Stace." He pointed at Stacy as she glared at him again.

"I'm _Stacy,_" she said, making a point to pronounce her name correctly, "I can identify myself perfectly well but unfortunately we're just leaving." She smiled at the Assassin and grabbed Desmond's arm.

"You will stay," Altair stated in a very matter-of-fact way. Stacy found her feet firmly planted on the ground.

"Look, dude, I know you have stuff to get back to-" Desmond started.

"I have no duties in waiting of performance." She couldn't see his shadow-covered face, but she somehow knew about the glare in his eye. "You will follow me."

He seemed very confident about this fact, because he turned his back on Stacy and Desmond right then, walking over to his white horse.


	3. Chapter 2

Altair rode at a walk, and Desmond and Stacy followed as if held on a leash.

"Where are you taking us?" Stacy called up to the assassin, but he ignored her.

"Al Mualim," Desmond mumbled, putting his forehead in his hand. Altair glanced down at him in minor surprise.

"What?" Stacy asked.

"His leader, the big bad." He glanced up at the Master Assassin. "Er, the big good."

"The head of the Assassins?"

"That's the one. I hope he doesn't do to us what he did to... God, I hope he..." He didn't finish either of his sentences as he stared into the sky. This didn't leave Stacy with a happy feeling.

They walked for a while in silence before Desmond started mumbling again. "The more I think about it, the less I want to _ever_ meet that man. He was nice enough when I-" he glanced at Altair. "He's merciful to some people, but not to _me. _I haven't really met him yet, but I know him and... he's gonna_ kill _us... Oh, God, this is real..."

Both Stacy and Altair were looking at him when he made his move. He probably knew he didn't have much of a chance, but in one fluid movement he turned and sprinted in the other direction.

Altair turned his horse and set it off at a gallop, leaving Stacy behind, bewildered. Subject Seventeen was a highly confidential case, but she had an idea about what they were doing. They were putting him on the Animus, fishing for another artifact. The most important one. The Animus looked into the memories of ancestors by reading DNA. Was Altair related to Desmond?

Altair rode back within a minute, Desmond on the back of the horse and sporting a very ugly bruise on the side of his face. He smiled at Stacy, though it looked painful.

"Hey, Stace," he said, as Altair lowered him to the ground with one arm and set off at a slow walk. "That was thrilling."

"Looks like it," she said, poking his bruise. He cringed, glaring at her.

The rest of the walk could almost be called uneventful, but it seemed to pull on for days. Stacy didn't exercise much other than the occasional minute on the treadmill or stair stepper, and soon found nearly all of the muscles in her body (including, to her puzzlement, her arms) screaming for her attention. The only reason she even tried to keep up was that if she stopped to sleep or rest or possibly pass out, Altair would either kill her or leave her behind. She had the artifact with her, but something told her that it wouldn't work even if she knew how it did in the first place.

Soon, but not soon enough, Altair got off of his horse. Desmond walked over to it, seemingly noticing it for the first time.

"Hey," he said, petting the horse's neck, "It's Eagle. I love this girl." He hugged the mare, earning strange looks from both Stacy and the assassin.

Altair took Desmond away from the horse by his shoulder and led the two through wooden city gates. After about five minutes of more walking, Stacy found herself in the courtyard of some kind of castle or palace. Though there were strange purple spots everywhere and she was in fear of passing out, her eyes widened at the sheer beauty of the place.

Both Desmond and Altair continued up the steps, not even looking around. She closed her mouth, which she hadn't even realized was open, and followed them, her legs somehow finding sudden strength now that their goal was in sight.

Altair led them (though it seemed like Desmond didn't even need him) into the palace and up the stairs, and stopping, finally, in front of a very important-looking desk and a very important-looking white-bearded man.

When she stopped walking, Stacy collapsed into a heap on the floor, unable to do much else. The man who she assumed to be Al Mualim rose an eyebrow at her.

"What is this you have brought, Altair?" he asked.

"Strangers. Traitors, perhaps. They know of our Creed."

Al Mualim rose both eyebrows this time, eyeing Stacy and Desmond. "They have come from far," he said, "The hues of their skin are unlike our own. Why travel such a long distance to betray our Brotherhood?"

"But we aren't going to betray your Brotherhood," Desmond replied.

"Traitors lie," Altair hissed.

"Look, I'll tell you everything I know about you guys, okay? I'll tell you what kinds of weapons Altair uses. I'll say how many people I know here. Hell, I'll even tell you how many fucking ranks there are, for Christ's sake! Just don't kill us!"

Stacy couldn't see Altair's face, but she practically felt rage steaming from it.

"We will hear you," Al Mualim decided after a pause, "Then we will decide your fate."

Desmond heaved a sigh of relief.

"Meanwhile, you will be kept in the dungeons."

His sigh was cut short. "Dungeons?"

"You are a stranger. We cannot let you have any freedom about the grounds. Both of you will be our prisoners."

Desmond took a step forward. "I know this place like the back of my hand! There aren't any dungeons here!"

Al Mualim presented him with a small smile. "Then perhaps you have been misinformed." With a small snap of his fingers, two people came from nowhere. One of them latched to Desmond's arm, dragging him back down the steps. The other one picked Stacy up with an iron grip, which was the last thing she felt before slipping into unconsciousness.


End file.
